Spiritual successor to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri to launch Fall 2014

When Firaxis announced it would be revealing a new game at its PAX East panel this weekend, the speculation among those in the know quickly converged on the obvious: Civilization VI. While we did get a new Civilization announcement today, the specific direction was far from expected. Instead, the next entry in the Civilization series is going to outer space with Civilization: Beyond Earth.

As the name implies, the game takes the familiar turn based simulation series to the stars. "Our time on Earth is ending, so we turn our gaze upward, to the stars, and embark on the bravest journey in human history," as an introductory trailer for the game puts it.

Many will no doubt link this announcement to the the well-loved Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri from 1999. While the IP rights to that series belong to a different publisher, "we like to think the heart and soul of that game belongs at Firaxis," lead designer David McDonogh said at a PAX East panel today. "For all the fans out there of Alpha Centauri, this is the game we have made for you."

That heritage, of course, includes designer Sid Meier himself, who serves as creative director for the game. McDonogh called Meier "one of the most humble and productive people I've met in this industry" and noted his "programmers first" hiring mentality in using designers that also know how to code.

The narrative behind Beyond Earth was left intentionally vague, in a way. The panelists made reference to "The Great Mistake" that happens about 25 years in the future and causes a Dark Age of humanitarian crisis for 200 or so years. The game won't really go into detail about what the civilization-destroying mistake was, though, because the game isn't really about where we came from, but about where we're going when we leave the planet to start anew, the panelists said. "I like the idea of a bunch of trash cans at Firaxis filled with historical text books," Emcee Jeff Cannata of the DLC podcast deadpanned. "'We don't need these anymore!'"

Where we're going as a species definitely seems to be a focus of the gameplay as well. Every new game in Beyond Earth is the story of a different expedition to a new planet that will serve as the new home for humanity. "It's not about humans versus aliens, it's about different factions of humans all trying to go to the same place," McDonogh said. That doesn't mean player won't run into alien life, of course, but "it might not be intelligent life" according to lead producer Lena Brenk.

Civilization: Beyond Earth (Announcement)

Each game starts with a different nation-based sponsor from Earth providing gameplay bonuses, as well as player-chosen spaceships, cargo, and colonists to start your new civilization. From there, the basic resource management and land-grabbing gameplay will be familiar to anyone who's played Civilization before, but "beyond that, play it like Civ V at your peril," McDonogh said.

The development team talked about three new "affinities" that form the focus of the tech tree and also the different win conditions in the game. Civilizations on the "Harmony" affinity, for instance, try to adapt their very DNA to fit better with a planet they didn't evolve on, taking on more plant-like characteristics to fit in on a planet dominated by flora, for instance. The "Supremacy" affinity sees players researching things like cybernetics, artificial sentience, and synthetic thought to transfer into a pure, resilient machine state that can survive any future cataclysm. The "Purity" affinity rejects both of these ideas, instead trying to keep humanity essentially the same and adapt the planet to its needs through things like extreme terraforming through "extremely heavy munitions."

Your new intra-planetary neighbors may have very different affinities, the developers said, and the eventual victor in any Civ game will be the one who shows the most devotion to their chosen affinity and dominates the direction of humanity's future. Players will also be able to win by being the first to contact an alien race, or simply by killing everyone (always the most direct method, I'd say).

Beyond Earth will also introduce a new semi-randomized quest system that helps introduce an in-game narrative in a somewhat procedural way. These quests will show up at different times in different playthroughs, and give different rewards so that players won't be able to "game" the system to simply maximize benefits from these story-based goals. McDonogh likened the storyline system to that of Magic: The Gathering, where little bits of arcana and history are revealed slowly through flavor text at the bottom of the cards.

Will have more details from the panel and a talk with the creators later in the day.

Firaxis have been one of the most consistently great studios over the past decade. Civ IV & V and XCOM: Enemy Unknown are all excellent games. There's every reason to expect that CivBE (aka Alpha Centauri 2) will be fantastic.

I've been waiting for a game like this for years. I played Alpha Centauri "back in the day" and whenever I win the "space race" victory in Civilization V I always wish the game would continue on the world I'd colonized.

It would be interesting to know more about the IP agreements. What was the structure of the agreement that it limited the rights of the "alpha centauri" publishing company to games named "alpha centauri" rather than games with content like alpha centauri?

It seems a little risky to present this as "an alpha centauri game, except it isn't called alpha centauri. Because we know another company has the rights to that."

It would be interesting to know more about the IP agreements. What was the structure of the agreement that it limited the rights of the "alpha centauri" publishing company to games named "alpha centauri" rather than games with content like alpha centauri?

It seems a little risky to present this as "an alpha centauri game, except it isn't called alpha centauri."

Probably the same situation that brought us Supreme Commander, a spiritual successor to Cavedog's classic Total Annihilation but without the IP rights.

Hrrm,I need to warn you guys that there's a weird glitch with this article - while I was reading the announcement for 'totally not Alpha Centauri',an odd firstfull'o'dollar hole suddenly appeared on my screen. It might be a coincidence,but still - be on the lookout /jokeSeriously,though, I do think that unless something goes terribly wrong (aka - they copy all the bad ideas from the initial SimCity release),this will be a must have title ,which as users have already pointed out seems to be par for the course for Firaxis

Oh HELL YES! I've been waiting for this game for a decade, I've wanted a new Sci-Fi Civ builder for a long time, and Firaxis makes incredible games, games that some how walk the line between complexity and enjoyable, without being a spreadsheet simulator.

This is so spectacular! I picked up Alpha Centauri from a bargain bin probably twelve or so years ago. Then I discovered there was an expansion pack but so few had been produced a used one was selling for around $60! I waited and finally snagged one for around $10. Thanks to someone's ingenuity with the .exe files, it's still installed and very playable on my Win7 computer. Here's hoping the new one lives up to the glory of its predecessor.

I like that lots of "old" games that I used to enjoy are getting remakes or spiritual successors released now. X-COM, Master of Magic (Age of Wonders 3), Baldur's Gate (Project Eternity), Torment, Wing Commander (Star Citizen), Eye of the Beholder/Dungeon Master (Legend of Grimrock), and now SMAC (I feel like I'm missing a game or two from the list). Good times...

After seeing what happened to Civilization V at launch, I've lost confidence in Firaxis. They turned a great historical nation-building sim into an overly-simplified (in ways that didn't make sense), unfinished board game with fantastic graphics.

Just as an example, winning the game was the most anticlimactic thing I've seen in a Civ game in decades. No movie, no evoking music, just a stats page saying "You win!"

PLEASE release this in a shape for for human consumption! Civ V needed several patches to be playable, and Civ III was even worse. I fear that with this not part of the main series, a publisher might give up on a badly tested game, and I'd hate for this to be stranded in MoO 3-territory. SMAC was my favorite game of all time.

Also: EA, do the right thing for once and let Firaxis use the SMAC name. Firaxis, see if Brian Reynolds can be convinced to come back for this.

PLEASE release this in a shape for for human consumption! Civ V needed several patches to be playable, and Civ III was even worse. I fear that with this not part of the main series, a publisher might give up on a badly tested game, and I'd hate for this to be stranded in MoO 3-territory. SMAC was my favorite game of all time.

Also: EA, do the right thing for once and let Firaxis use the SMAC name. Firaxis, see if Brian Reynolds can be convinced to come back for this.

I'm a relatively new Civ fan, but why is there so much concern about keeping the Alpha Centauri name?

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.